Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. Browse the site without registration. Type Edu in the search bar, and find an Education area with menu tabs like Science, Elementary, English, Higher, STEM, and more. Images have a short caption; clicking on a picture gives the option to Repin or Like. To create/add to your pinboards, register for free. If you have an account, you can Repin the picture to a pinboard you have titled and created within your account. Click on the image again to visit the original site of the image. Often this is just what you are looking for to learn specific details. You can also search Pinterest for specific items such as Guided Reading, File Folder Activities, or other classroom needs. Pinterest members can "follow" other users and see their new items as they add them to their pinboards. Use Pinterest on any device or computer, and there is a related Facebook app.

In the Classroom

Use this site as a resource for finding printables and other items for classroom use. Create your own pinboards for organizing classroom resources found on the web. Create pinboards for students to view and/or add to as a whole class activity, such as "things that use energy," food groups, or groups of items for primary level vocabulary/practice (clothing items, farm animals, clock faces for telling time, etc.). Maybe even create "which one does not belong?" pinboards for PreK and early grades to view and change on an interactive whiteboard and repeat at home. In higher grades, make pinboards for different subjects or units where you collect videos, images, classroom blogs and websites, etc. Share your pinboards with students and parents by putting the link on your class website. Challenge your older students to create their own pinboards as a research project. Use Pinterest to show their hobbies/passions, wise quotes, recipes that fit a specific theme, art/lyrics, or a travel Itinerary. Follow other teachers using Pinterest to see items that they are adding and using in their classrooms. Add TeachersFirst to your pinboards! Note: Take a screenshot of something you find to upload to Pinterest!

Public Domain Pictures is a database of pictures allowed to be used in any way that you see fit. You can also upload pictures to share. The only time to worry about a model or property release is if you choose to use an image for commercial use. Most images are free. Enjoy some time browsing pictures. Please note that a log-in (with an email address) is required to upload your own pictures. You do not need an account to download a picture for free. Be sure not to click on the "Premium Download" button, as this download is for a fee (even with the "free" photos). Scroll down a bit and click on "download picture" to download for free.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Share this website on your class web page so that students have easy and legal access to pictures for their projects and presentations. Of course, you will still require proper image credits! Be sure to offer clear instructions about how to download FOR FREE. In an art or photography class, have students post their work to get exposure and recognition for their great images. Read tips for safely managing email registrations here.

Explore collections of primary documents from US History enhanced with tools for teaching. This site adds the ability to manipulate primary documents to build informative and challenging lessons. While a few of the documents and lessons are available for the casual visitor to the site, you need to register (and it's free!) in order to make full use of the amazing resources here. Once you have registered, you can access all the documents and use the activity builder to create lessons which use primary documents to teach sequencing, mapping, weighing evidence, interpreting data, and seeing the big picture. Please note that you do not HAVE to create anything, you can simply use what is already here. (And they do already have a lot to offer.) You will need to create a project if you want to package an activity that you can use now and again later.

In the Classroom

If you teach history or social studies, you know what a great emphasis is being placed on the use of primary documents in helping students develop an awareness of the perspectives of those who lived during a particular era. Use this site to develop sophisticated lessons using primary documents on US History with the activity builder. Use the ready-made activities (the majority of which are available once you've registered), on an interactive whiteboard or projector for the whole class or assign groups of students to work independently at a computer workstation or at home. These activities encourage higher order thinking among students rather than simply the memorization of facts.

Make a pdf using the text you enter and a creative layout you choose. Simply type or paste in your text into the large box, choose from one of the three available fonts, font size, and paper size. Then choose a layout for the finished project. Text can be produced as a banner, maze, rebus, spiral, Valentine (heart), or waves. Students will love seeing their work reproduced in a new way! The finished product is generated as a pdf file to be saved and easily printed.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Motivate reluctant writers. When they complete work, allow them to use the site to generate a copy in whatever way they choose. Share student work on your bulletin board using this site to create interesting layouts to use. This is a must-have at Valentine season. Have students write a series of words they use to describe their mom or dad, then paste them into the heart layout generator. Poof! Instant Valentines, ready to print on colorful paper and send home! Older students will appreciate making creative layouts of vocabulary words and more, including world language classes. Make spelling practice more fun by having students make their own layouts or personal spelling lists.

Socrative is a smart student response system -- the answer to not having expensive "educational clickers" in your classroom. Socrative is in beta at this time and is free. Their apps work on tablets, smartphones, iPod Touch, laptops, and others. There is an introductory video demonstrating teacher and student logins and how your class will interact in real-time. You can create your own multiple choice, true/false, and short answer questions. You may also choose to use one of their ready-made activities as exit tickets, thoughtful questions, or games. See your students' responses in an Excel file or view online as a Google spreadsheet. Multiple choice questions are automatically corrected.

In the Classroom

If you've ever wanted greater student engagement, increased student interest, and heightened discussion and interactivity in your classroom, Socrative is the answer. Students can give their input and express their views anonymously, if you wish.

In any curriculum area, ask open-ended questions and display student responses with your projector or interactive whiteboard. Students could then use a tool like Votesy, reviewed here to vote on the options.

Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have.

"Lose It!" is a comprehensive calorie counting and activity tracking tool; this website provides a free way to monitor calorie intake and output to lose, maintain, or manage health and weight. With great graphics and an available phone application, this tool is so versatile and easy that even younger students could learn to use it. The database of food includes restaurant, grocery, and generic food brands and types.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Try using "Lose It!" in health classes as early as fifth grade to help students become aware of how they spend their calories in a day and just how much they are consuming. Sometimes just this awareness is enough to help some kids stay healthier. Have students do a baseline record what they eat and do with no set rules for three days to a week. Have students analyze with their free weekly reports: what they consumed, how much, and what vitamins and other nutrients that they may need to increase. If students are comfortable sharing information with each other, have them compare reports to get a better and more realistic view of their intake. Have students create a plan to make small changes to diet and activity for a week at a time and then have them check their reports again. This could be a year long, month long, or two week long process. Depending on the incidence of childhood obesity or malnutrition in your area, you can adjust this to fit your needs. If you are concerned about student privacy, create an account for a fictitious person that the entire class can use to analyze hypothetical food intake and more.

This is a social networking site for English language learners. With a free registration, students can create their own profile, make new "friends," upload photos of their choice, chat using text, voice and video chat, create a "wall" similar to that in Facebook, practice English using a remarkable exercise bank, and play language games. Activities such as hangman, spelling power, crosswords, and more are available without creating an account or logging in. Creating an account allows full access to the social networking features of the site and is similar to Facebook. Registration requires a username, first and last name, email address, and birth date.

In the Classroom

Check your school policies for allowing students to use social networks. This site is good practice for students using their English to follow directions to set up their profile as well as writing brief notes in English to communicate with their new "friends" on Talk and Learn. This may be a good site to provide to ESL/ELL families via your class website.

iCharts creates a new place to publish online charts (with interactive info on mouse-clicks) based on public or private data. Format charts as you see fit. Share charts using Facebook or Twitter or embed them in a website or blog. Clip and save iCharts that you like into your account. You can also browse all types of interesting charts made by others.

In the Classroom

This site is great for classroom work or teacher-created mapping. You will want to play with this tool before using it in class, but it is very simple to use. Use with any numerical data that is best shown in a chart. Collect data in a science lab, survey, or math class, and display it using different graphs to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using each graph type. In reading class, practice reading charts/graphs that accompany informational texts using the various examples here. Use for quick creation and sharing of graphs. Create charts together easily on an interactive whiteboard (or projector) when introducing the different types to elementary students, then embed your examples on a class web page for students to revisit. Have students operate the board so their peers can see how the tool works and give each other oral directions as they problem solve together. Then make the iChart site a small group center during math class for further practice on a computer or interactive whiteboard. Save this site in your favorites for quick retrieval any time students need to make a quick chart. For student practice, have them chart time spent on homework or hobbies, choice of favorite pet, etc. Reinforce good study habits in middle school by having students make charts of their average grades or time spent on independent reading.

Interested in making a QR code, but think it is too difficult? Use this site for a quick and easy way to make a QR code of web links. Simply enter the url. (Be sure that SmallQR is selected under Advanced options.) Save your QR code as a png image file and be sure to read the tips: a.make sure that the image is not printed too small and b. test the QRcode out before using it elsewhere.

In the Classroom

Create a QR code for your class site or blog and include it on handouts for Back to School night. Create a QR code scavenger hunt for students, making a webquest more engaging. Add QR codes to documents for students to check their answers to questions. Expand knowledge of a topic by adding a QR code to a site that expands upon what is in the textbook. Create a data chart accessible via a QR code. Students access the data and manipulate the information. Have students create a book trailer or review and affix a QR code to the outside of the book. Students may be more apt to read a book that has been reviewed by another student. Make a display completely interactive with a QR code that describes the assignment, the process, the research, student's reactions and more! Add extra help information to any assignment that asks students to solve problems. Create an online help tutorial accessible via a QR code, and place the code beside a similar problem. Link directly to a Google Map. Place QR code contact information for you and your school on contact cards to give to parents. Attach QR codes to physical objects around the room to provide information about the object. Place the links in a newsletter using QR codes instead of a series of words that need to be typed.

Super-hero your images! Use this image editor to add speech and thought bubbles to photos and images. Upload your image (such as a photo from your digital camera or a copyright safe image), add a text balloon, insert a sound effect (like kaboom!), and change the background or border. Save to your computer or email to yourself or others (note that the image is deleted from the website after 24 hours.)This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

This would be a great way to make comic strips using images from class! Use in any subject area and for any topic to add a twist to your digital storytelling project. Have students create a comic rather than a traditional book report. The main character or a minor character could "talk" about the book. Or have students create comic strips to go along with science topics, math concepts, historical figures, and more. Have students email you the images/comics. Share the finished products on your projector or interactive whiteboard. Share the saved images on a class wiki or make a student generated bulletin board of comics.

Vocabulary.com is an individualized vocabulary development program. Your students will select definitions for several vocabulary words. Based on their answers, the program will predict which vocabulary words they don't know and instruct them from there. You can also type in a word to learn the definition. With more than 40,000 questions to help your students learn new vocabulary, time will not be wasted here. The vocabulary is chosen based on words that need to be mastered for success in an academic or business environment. The program will analyze student achievement and review words that the students originally missed to make sure they are retaining the words. Vocabulary.com is for students from elementary school through graduate school. You can register with an email address or via your Facebook account. Note: as with any dictionary tool, there is content that is intended for more mature users, including matter of fact definitions of swear words. Teachers will want to manage this tool as any adult dictionary and have logical consequences for those who look up words so they can giggle, etc.

In the Classroom

Use this site as a learning center or station for students who finish their work early. Be sure to mark the site on classroom computers, making it easier for students to navigate there. Or, if you have access to multiple classroom computers, you may want to start your language arts lessons with five to ten minutes of work on Vocabulary.com. Once students have learned this program they can be totally independent. This is one to list on your class website for students/parents to access at home for additional practice.

Create tutorials for anyone about anything using this tool! Start from an easy to use template and share your tutorial via a unique URL. Your tutorial can have text, screen shots, and videos. You don't need to register to start a tutorial, but if you want to save, edit or delete it, you'll need to sign up with your email address. Tildee is free. You can also view public tutorials by searching. At the time of this review, there were many well done Tildees on topics such as: How to Use Google Translate, Lotus, MLA and How to Tame It, and much more.

In the Classroom

Tildee could become a very powerful tool in your classroom. Have students use it to demonstrate what they understand about any concept you teach. Tildee would be the ultimate in "show your work" to explain how students came to a conclusion. Students could use Tildee for persuasive speeches, or speech and debate by uploading facts, videos, and images to prove their point during their speeches. They can also use it to write sequenced directions. Students in history, math, science, art or music classes could showcase their knowledge by creating a tutorial about any topic: how an animal became endangered and the steps to reverse this, the major events that led up to the Civil Rights Movement, or the Holocaust, how to reduce a fraction, the cycle of a cell, or anything else you feel would be worthy of assessment. Physical Education teachers could create tutorials for any move for any sport or exercise, i.e. how to do a proper sit-up or push-up. Teachers can use this site to create tutorials for absentees and/or review and post the URL on your webpage.

Join the writers and readers of obooko, the free site to publish and read ebooks. Readers' Choice Awards of 2011 winner for free eBooks , obooko offers a platform to share your work and read the works of others. Become a reviewer and write comments on other ebooks. As authors, you retain all rights with no charges or contracts. This site is legal and does not infringe on copyright laws. There are numerous categories to choose from: Romance and Women, Crime, Religion, Thriller, Mystery, Teens, and much more! This site is not intended for children under 13. Some of the content may not be appropriate for the classroom. So be sure to preview. This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

For your language arts class, obooko contains many examples of contemporary writing. Selections for critiquing and editing are readily available without hurting any class member's feelings. Look at examples for current ideas and places to begin brainstorming. Included are free templates for different types of writing. Have each member of your class become a published author! Use the titles as writing prompts or read only half of the story and have students finish it in their own way. Bring each student's story into the lives of many. Assign critiques using obooko. You might even create a school or class obooko literary magazine during poetry month.

Library/media specialists may want to select certain ebooks to load on school iTouches for students to read and review. Start an obooko reading club with these free options.

If you are uncomfortable sharing here or school policy prohibits it, have your classes create a similar website (wiki) with published pieces from your school or class. Not familiar with wikis? Check out the TeachersFirst Wiki Walk-Through.

Interested in stop motion animation, but think it is too complicated? JellyCam is a free program for creating stop motion movies. JellyCam is a software download for Windows computers and Macs for creating stop motion movies using the computer web cam or an assortment of pictures. Adobe Air is required and is a free and simple install. Be sure to check out the specs required for installation. Easily use images from your computer or ones captured from your webcam. Upload a soundtrack if desired. View the video tutorial before beginning to get an overview of how to use the site. Select images, and then quickly arrange them into a sequence. Then determine how many images you want per frame. View the demo video to learn more about this neat program!

In the Classroom

Use JellyCam to show time consuming or difficult processes broken down frame by frame. For example, long games of Chess could be turned into a video that just highlights player moves. For Science, show processes such as diffusion and osmosis (drop food coloring in water and watch it spread over time) or create DNA models that you actually show moving performing a process one step at a time. In math, build geometric structures or find math in everyday actions. Create a stop motion of actors throughout a scene. Show the creative process in creating a work of art. Have students use your webcam or digital camera to capture images showing a sequence of events within a story or book. Use this site to retell science concepts (life of a cell, human stages of development, and others). Groups of students can create the dialogue or narration for the video by using a program such Blabberize (reviewed here). Share student videos using a tool such as SchoolTube reviewed here.

Pearltrees.com is a great place to organize, share, and store websites for current, future, or collaborative use. More than a standard social bookmarking website, Pearltrees allows you to create trees of sites to show relationships or even the order in which to browse websites. It is extremely simple to sign up, free, and easy to use once you have joined. To use it, you can install an add-on to your browser, use a bookmarklet, or just use your home spot to paste in websites that you want to add to your own pearl tree. There are "big pearls" that function as folders for multiple strands of Internet pearls. This is a device-agnostic tool, available on the web but also available for free as both an Android and iOS app. Use it from any device or move between several devices and still access your work. App and web versions vary slightly.

In the Classroom

In the simplest form, Pearltrees could be used to store links for classes that you are teaching or taking. More creatively, however, you could use this site to create a guided online field trip from one site to another. Even try pairing Pearltrees with the use of a highlighting style website such as Webklipper reviewed here, to direct students to the information on the site that you, as their teacher, want them to see. Try turning the tables on your students, and have them create a Pearltree for short research projects or as a working bibliography for their research papers.
Use this tool easily in your Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) classroom since all students will be able to access it for free, no matter what device they have.

Mind 42 is an easy to use mind mapping (or concept mapping) tool. You create the format and easily add links, notes, to do lists, images, or even a Wikipedia article. Import the result into documents or perhaps a Skype conversation. Bring mind maps/concept maps to a new level!

In the Classroom

This free organizational tool can be used in classrooms at every level. Teachers can use this tool to help organize learning units and share the orgnanization on screen so students see how pieces fit together. Share the unit map with other teachers, students, or parents, to highlight goals, objectives, learning tasks, assessments, and resources. Share before your unit and expectations become very clear. Use as a yearly overview for parents showing units with resources at the beginning of the year at Open House. Let parents see the multiple ways their child will be assessed through the year. Students can use this tool for direction in problem based learning situations. Use this tool in science for collecting data, experiments, or science fair outlines. Use the tool in writing class to make writing guides for narrative or expository writing. In reading, use for predictions, sequencing of stories, inferences, or organizing genres of books each student has read. Have students map multiple ways to solve a single problem in math class. Have students keep daily requirements or schedules with readily available resources as links. Let students enjoy taking notes from content based classes. Have a student scribe create the notes each day and share with the class. Have student groups map the current unit before the test as a review activity.

This free tool is designed to help high school students prepare for state standardized testing, better understand college admissions and financial planning, and generally help prepare for their futures. Preparation for these types of exams can greatly increase scores, so why not use a free, already created tool. Sign up as a student, teacher, or parent/mentor. A logged-in user can access state standardized test preparations, SAT and ACT practice tests, flashcards for ACT and SAT test preparation, Zero Hour Threat (a cool video game to help increase ACT and SAT scores as part of the college entrance process), and college planning tips.

In the Classroom

Use this in junior and senior level courses to help students who are college bound prepare for SAT and ACT exams. It saves time and helps kids, no one can argue with those advantages. Try using this with younger high school (or even middle school) aged students in a gifted program to provide enrichment and early practice for early test takers. Be certain to provide this link on your class website for students to access at home.

Ge.tt is an easy to use tool for file sharing via the web. One user can still be uploading while his friends are downloading from his files. This eliminates the need for flash drives if you have access to the Internet. You can work from remote locations to create collaborative projects for home, work, or school. This is a free service with free sign up and 2GB of free storage space.

In the Classroom

When assigning group projects to be worked on outside of class, have students share work via Ge.tt. This eliminates the need to actually be in the same place at the same time, which can be difficult for students to arrange due to their schedules and their parents' schedules. Use this to have students share files with you. Students can send you any file up to 2GB with a few simple clicks. Use this as an extra file back-up when transporting files for a grad presentation or other important event.

Bounce allows you to upload from your computer or grab an image from the web to share with others. Make "bouncing around" on the web easier and more directed by guiding people to what you want them to see. Once you grab or upload an image (screenshot), you can add notes and comments. Share via email or using the url on the page. Free registration is required to be able to share links, view projects, and collaborate.

In the Classroom

Create a detailed and guided "web quest" for students. This way they cannot be confused about what they should be looking for on a page; they can simply look for your comments and find their information. Help special education students and others keep track of and organize what they have found on the web for research projects. This would be an excellent tool for showing and teaching reading comprehension. Assign students a web article or story and have them notate it with their pre reading questions, main idea sentences or summaries of what they have read. They can share their links with you as an assignment submission or for others to view. Use Bounce for students to critique or analyze bias or misinformation on websites as part of an information literacy unit. Students could also use a picture of an animal or plant and add the taxonomical information to it in science class and create a "web trail" of insects using Bounce as an alternative to an old fashioned insect project. Collect and annotate from all over the web!

authorSTREAM, an internet based presentation maker that is based on PowerPoint formatting, is easy to use and offers some very useful and unique features. Offering more than the basic PowerPoint creation greatly expands its value. Special features of authorSTREAM include the ability to make public presentations, download presentations as FLV, MP4, AVI, and WMV files, present live to an online audience anywhere in the world, and the ability to create a "channel" or collection of all your online work. With this application, you can add YouTube videos and sound narration directly to your presentations. Of these features, perhaps the two most unique are the ability to download in different formats. Using this, you can create a movie to be played on a television or create a file that can be shared by all of your audience on iTunes, since MP4 is iTunes language! With private presentations -- or even public ones -- you can protect access with a password. Also, this program has an add-on in PowerPoint that allows you to search web content directly from the application. This add-on is also free but does require a Windows machine; even if your Mac has Microsoft PowerPoint, it will not work properly. Talk about a time saver for Windows users!

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Have you been contemplating a "flipped classroom" teaching style where you do the activities and hands-on things during class and the students listen to the information and lectures outside of class? This is a great tool for a flipped classroom or any use of sharable media. You can create your notes and lectures in PowerPoint, adding video clips and narration, download as an MP4, and then share with all of your students through iTunes. This greatly enhances the opportunities for extended thinking and active time in the classroom. More simply, try recording yourself giving an informational presentation, saving it here, and sharing with students via your website or wiki to access from home as a review tool or a catch-up for absentees. Have older students create their own presentations and share with the class and teacher via iTunes. Students who are normally very shy and uncomfortable can feel safe "presenting" in front of the class! High school students can also share links to their best work as part of a digital portfolio or college application. Art students can create online portfolios with narrated artist notes. Student-made book talks can be shared on iTouches in the library/media center. Link to them by QR code! Teachers at any grade level can share back to school night information with parents unable to attend.